A/HRC/28/69 66. In committing these acts, the anti-Government armed groups perpetrated the war crime of murder. Due to the fragmented nature of armed groups and frequently shifting alliances and membership, it is challenging to identify exact perpetrators. Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham 67. Throughout the reporting period, ISIS has killed civilians, captured Government soldiers and captured fighters from other armed groups in Aleppo, Ar Raqqah, Dayr az Zawr and Al Hasakah governorates. While the group is infamous for its public executions and its display of mutilated bodies, ISIS has also killed people held in its detention centres, journalists, and those captured during military attacks or bought from other armed groups. Civilian deaths were also recorded due to the group’s indiscriminate shelling of Ayn alArab (Kobane) in September 2014. Sentencing and executions without due process 68. ISIS has killed men, women and children in public spaces in towns and villages across northeastern Syria. Many of those executed were found guilty by ISIS courts of being affiliated with other armed groups or collaborating with the Government. In public declarations made before the executions, ISIS designated such people as “kuffar” or infidels. In other cases, the victims were civilians who had breached ISIS’s edicts. Local residents are urged to watch. In some cases, men and boys on the streets near execution sites are forcibly taken to witness the killings. 69. Executions have been recorded in Ar Raqqah, Aleppo, Dayr az Zawr, Al Hasakah, and Hama governorates. While most of the soldiers from the Tabqa airbase on 23 August, were killed en masse soon after capture, smaller groups of soldiers captured as they fled in the desert were later executed in Slouk and Tabqa. Two soldiers, captured outside the base, were brought to Slouk and executed in a public square between 28 and 30 August 2014. A 16-year-old ISIS fighter carried out the beheading. Two more captured soldiers were executed publicly in Tabqa in late August 2014. 70. After killing the captured soldiers, ISIS mutilated their bodies. The group placed the decapitated heads of some of the soldiers on public display in squares and on roundabouts in Tabqa and Raqqah cities, terrorising the local population. 71. ISIS executed men in Al-Jurniyah (Ar Raqqah) in July 2014. Furthermore, heads of the executed soldiers captured from the 17th Division base were displayed in parks and roundabouts around the town in late July. Executions continue to take place regularly in AlNa’im Square in Raqqah city with multiple accounts of heads and bodies being placed on display in the square. 72. The group has executed women and men for unapproved contact with the opposite sex, resulting in charges of adultery. In Ar Raqqah governorate, ISIS executed eight women on these grounds on three separate occasions in June and July 2014. Most were stoned to death, ostensibly for adultery. Others interviewed indicated that the women had been discovered helping fighters from other armed groups. 73. Multiple accounts of ISIS executing men in Minbeij (Aleppo) were collected. Between August and October, residents witnessed executions of young men and the display of their bodies in the public park. Executions were also documented in Al-Bab (Aleppo) in July and August 2014. 74. Following ISIS’s taking over part of Dayr az Zawr governorate, there has been an escalation in reports of public executions, notably in Al-Ashara, Al-Mayadin, Al-Bukamal, Al-Shuhail, Al-Bouamrou and Al-Tayanna. On 16 September, a 16-year-old boy, alleged to be a fighter with an armed group, was shot in the head by an ISIS fighter in a public market. 35